The Game

The new Bobby Clarke

Now we know for sure why Philadelphia signed Mike Richards to an eight-year deal. He is a player.

You can see a lot of Bobby Clarke in him from offensive skills to his work on Sidney Crosby as the Eastern conference final has worn on.

Granted, Sid the Kid victimized him off a faceoff late in Game 4, but from power play to penalty kill, Richards has been Flyers top player.

Alas, we might not see much more of him as the Pens can be expected to close off any further Philly comeback Sunday.

On the other side of the puck, we are struck by the peevishness of Crosby and Evgeni Malkin when the checking gets close. OK, they’re young. But they win no fans with shows of frustration when things don’t go their way.

As outrageously gifted as they are, sometimes a bit of humility serves you well when mere mortals strip you of the puck.

This will happen to them often in an anticipated final with Detroit. Our advice? Get over it.

In any case, Pittsburgh’s swift ascension to the top rung in the NHL brings to mind a conversation with Crosby early in the 2006-2007 season about how NHL teams may have tighter time frames to win a Cup with free-agency eligibility happening sooner.

Crosby cautioned the young team can't afford to feel any sense of urgency to win it before free agency possibly breaks up an embarrassment of riches including him, Malkin, Jordan Staal, Chris Letang and Marc-Andre Fleury.

“I don’t think in the backs of our minds we’re saying ‘hey, we have to hurry up’,” Crosby told The Spec. “Hopefully the learning curve will be fast and we’ll be able to do it.”

Well maybe not this year, likely against a beautifully balanced Detroit outfit, but probably next year.

Maurice classy in farewell

It was almost as if the media didn’t want it to end.
    We kept asking questions, the answers to which we knew we would never use in any public forum. Just to hear his take, his analysis, because no matter the subject, it is always worth  hearing what Paul Maurice has to say.
     Maurice said goodbye this morning and, true to who he is, was  erudite, self-defacing, humourous and grateful.
    History will not regard his two-year tenure as head coach with favour. His overall NHL record is not good, as he readily agreed yesterday. In a decade of coaching, just once has he gone past the the first round of the playoffs, when he'’s made them at all. That time, of course, he went all the way to the Stanley Cup finals, losing 4-1 to Detroit.
    But he was part of building something in Carolina, and part of a massive treading water situation in Toronto. When he left the building this morning, the John Ferguson era was over.
     What follows remains to be seen, but it’s likely to have its share of bizarreness. That’s already started with the Dave Nonis nonsense.
    Maurice, who becomes an automatic candidate for vacant positions in Florida and Atlanta, although not likely in Ottawa, says he wouldn’t like to be an assistant coach.
    "“I don't think I’'d be any good at it,”" he said, and we agree. In most cases, you are a head coach or you are not. He is.
    It will be a busy spring and summer for the ink-stained wretches and talking heads in and around Toronto. New GM, new players, new coach.....and that’s just in hockey. The Raptors are bound to make at least one splash in player personnel.
    And maybe Sam Mitchell gets the axe and John Gibbons too. That would make a full  quintet in the Toronto sports coaching  fraternity. Pinball and Mo Johnston were promoted, Maurice fired and Mitchell and Gibbons are teetering.
    Maurice blamed no one today, and thanked everyone. His one regret, he said was that Ferguson was fired. He also wished he could stay around because “you want to be part of it when it happens--and it will happen---and this is going to be an exceptional place.”
    That’s more optimism than anyone in the room, or the city, feels. History weighs against it.

    --Steve Milton

Leafs live in the speculation zone

The horrible thing about blogs, all-sport radio and 24-hour sports networks is the flip side of the great thing about them.
    They offer almost unlimited time  for speculation.
    So with the Leafs currently and formally without a General Manager, coach and playing captain, every possible permutation is getting its 15 minutes in the sun, and taking on a life of its own.
    Enter the concept of David Nonis as one-year manager of the Leafs, keeping the seat warm for his friend and former boss Brian Burke until he can get out of Orange County.
    Forget, for a moment, the two most obvious things here: that Nonis would be publicly demeaning himself, relegating himself forever, in the eyes of those who matter, to an aide de camp;  and that this would be glaring tampering in regard to Anaheim, where Burke would be allegedly doing the best to help his franchise win while being opaquely pursued by another franchise.
    Gary Bettman would jump in the path of this in a heartbeat. Just because the Ducks are no longer called Mighty, doesn’'t mean the NHL isn’t still afraid of being viewed as Mickey Mouse.    
     The Leafs, clearly, have never had that fear but even they would be hard-pressed to portray this as thinking outside the box, or creative planning, or anything except terminal tomfoolery. Baby stuff. Absurdity dressed in a three-piece suit.
    What? There is no one else on earth who can do a great job running the Leafs? The club is so paralyzed by fear of failure that it can only see the shiniest ornament on the tree? Burke’'s an investment worth a whole year of franchise ridicule and humiliation?
    One sports network is reporting this as a real story, and maybe they have an in that others don'’t. Or maybe someone is floating something, running an idea up the flagpole and seeing who salutes it. The only general principle which could possibly be in play here is that truth is usually more ridiculous than fiction.
    If so, these Leafs and their alleged star search committee---and long-time business acquaintance Gord Kirke is greatly respected in this blog and in the newspaper column--- are even feebler than their laughable predecessors. 

    - Steve Milton

Hoping for glitter over grit

Much is being made of increased scoring in these NHL playoffs, something like five and half pucks in nets per game compared to just shy of five last year.

Question is, how many have been stylish goals?
And why do the fans have to settle for so-called gritty goals?

That’s why any real hockey fan should be pulling for the Pens and the Wings in their conference finals.
Those outfits are mostly likely to elevate the game with high-paced, high-skill hockey.

I’d even settle for Pens-Stars. No offence to Philly. If they go all the way they could foster imitators that could yank the game backwards.

No, the Detroit swifties against the Pittsburgh young stars would breathe hope into the game’s future.

John Kernaghan

Habs out after 6-4 loss to Flyers

MONTREAL

By Steve MIlton

        It was like watching a massive mudslide, in its steady, destructive inevitability.
        The Montreal Canadiens, who couldn’t get a lead in this series and then found out they couldn’t hold one, recoiled in horror as their flight back to Philadelphia turned into a trip to oblivion Saturday night.
        The Philadelphia Flyers, who were among the east’s best teams tthrough the early part of the year and have returned there in the latter part, just would not go away. And now they’re going on.
        In barely more than a calendar year, the Flyers have surged from last place to the final four.
        The Flyers’ 6-4  comeback victory over the Canadiens confirmed the notion that they were the superior team in mental and emotional toughness during this series, which they won in one game over the minimum.
        R.J. Umbergerer, a forward who could not find a regular line all year and had just 13 goals during the regular season, scored two more last night to give him a stunning eight in the five-game series.
        Mike Richards, Scott Hartnell, Scottie Upshall and Mike Knuble also scored for the Flyers who will now play an all-Atlantic division eastern final against either upstate rivals Pittsburgh Penguins or the New York Rangers.
        And while fourth-liner Tom Kostopoulos started the series as the unlikely hero with an overtime goal for the Canadiens’ only win, Umberger has become one of those post-season cult heroes. Every time he fired the puck toward the net, something good happened.
        “The adrenalin, the confidence, it’s an amazing thing, they just take over,” Umberger told The Spec after the game. “You’re out of yourself, out of your body. It’s just unbelievable. You get in the zone. It’s a funny thing, you just feel unstoppable.
        “Our team game is so important to us right now, we don’t care who scores. And you know, there was a point there in late February, when it looked like we maybe might not make the playoffs.”
        The only shock about Umberger’s play last night was that he  wasn’t on the ice for the winning goal.
        With Canadiens’ right defenceman Josh Gorges caught out of position  Upshall tipped Jeff Carter’s shot past Carey Price with three minutes left to snap a wild and woolly 4-4 tie.
         Knuble’s empty-netter with 50 seconds  left ended the Canadiens’ avowed Drive for 25 (as in Cups won).
        The Flyers were full measure for the victory, both Saturday night and in the series.
        They came into a hostile evironment, fell behind 3-1 and still won the game. All series they never trailed after regulation time and in the pivotal second periods of the five games, outscored the Canadiens 8-2, including 3-1 in the clincher.
        After  Knuble’s goal nailed shut their team’s  coffin, the disappointed Bell Centre audience rose to salute the Canadiens, who had finished first in the conference during the season despite being picked by most experts to miss the playoffs.
        In the end, the Montreal defence and goaltender Price were victimized far too many times by the sixth-place Flyers, who reach the eastern final for the first time in four years. The Canadiens haven’t been there in 15 years, since they last won the Stanley Cup.
        At a major theme park, you’d have to pay mega-bucks to climb aboard the ride that Price was on last night. He made several stunning saves as the Canadiens built up their 3-1 lead, including a couple of unconscious stops during the Flyers’ 56-second two-man advantage in the middle of the second period.
        That penalty kill cracked the sound barrier at the Deci-Bell Centre. But in the final half of the second period the place went mute as the Canadiens’ two-goal pillow turned into a whoopee cushion.
        Abetted by some sloppy work exiting their zone, and their own hard-nosed determination,  the Flyers scored three times and Price devolved from stalwart, to inattentive to unsteady to shaken, and it came as a suprise to some that he was in the net for the third period.
        The Canadiens tied it early in the third on Andrei Kostitsyn’s high bullet and seemed to be off to the races. Price rebounded nicely with some sparkling saves, including a darting left leg stab on Daniel Briere’s breakaway to rob the classy Flyer forward for the second time of the evening.
        “I thought after that we might get them,” said Price. “We banged one right off the post (Guillaume Latrendresse) and they come right back and tip one in. That’s the way it went.”
        Montreal coach Guy Carbonneau’s strategy of reverting to the lines which played together most of the season seemed to work as the Canadiens took their first lead of the series.  Tomas Plekanec scored 4:29 into the opening frame on the Habs’ first power play.
        Their much-and-deservedly-maligned extra-man unit finally got some traffic in front of Martin Biron. Patrice Brisebois’ perfect shot from the point was deflected by Plekanec into a gaping wide side, as Biron and his defence were pre-occupied with Alex Kovalev, who was also parked, somewhat uncharacteristically, in front.
        But just prior to that the Habs had surrendered a breakaway to the inspired Richards, whose quick deke was beaten by Price’s even quicker left leg. Price also took a good shot at the Philly forward.
         Umberger, who was on another planet all series,  muscled his way to the tying goal later in the period when he took advantage of yet another of those mystifying Canadiens’ gaffes at the offensive blueline. Brisebois couldn’t hold the puck in, and Umberger steamed up-ice before cutting into the middle to force Price into a good leg save. As Umberger was falling, he swiped the rebound into the net.
        But just a minute later,  Maxim Lapierre  successfully executed a wraparound, getting a step on Kimmo Timonen and banking it in off Kovalev’s right skate.  That doubled the Canadiens’  first-period production of the first four games.
        Chris Higgins, who’d been quiet in the series, made it 3-1 before the Flyers got back into it with a goal which went off Richards’ glove.
        Some startling forechecking by lead-footed Flyer defenceman Derian Hatcher  and some very weak defensive work by Roman Hamrlick--who had a poor series---allowed Umberger to flip in a puck from an impossible angle to tie the game. 
        Then came Hartnell’ s long shot from the top of the left circle to give the Flyers a 4-3 lead which, in the building, felt like 10-3 at the time.
        “I just wish I could have played  better,” said Price, who admitted he was exhausted after last year’s Calder Cup run, and taking over as the No. 1, and really only, goalie at the trade deadline. “I’m drained, but the difference between winning and losing is fighting through it.
        “I’m not going to even look at my equipment for three months. It feels like I’ve been playing for two years straight. Short summer, right into this year, it seems like it’s been going on forever. But it’s been a lot of fun.”
        The fun ended in a hurry for the Habs, who lost four straight for the first time all year.
        And the loony Flyer fans may be doing a new take on the old Saturday Night Live skit:
        Cheeseburger, Cheeseburger, Umburger, Umberger.
      

Gordie Who?

Johan Franzen keeps pushing aside Gordie Howe’s records.

In March, his six game-winning goals bested the franchise record of five established by Howe in 1952, and on Thursday night, he scored three goals in the Detroit Red Wings’ series-clinching 8-2 rout of the Colorado Avalanche, giving him nine in the four-game sweep.
So what did he think of again besting Howe, the Hall of Famer who set the franchise record of eight goals in one series (seven games) in 1949?
“I didn’t follow the game back then,” cracked Franzen.
“He’s been great. He’s a big, big man with lots of skill. We’re lucky to have him,” Red Wings coach Mike Babcock said. “We feel good about that. I’m not taking anything away from what we did, but their team was depleted by the end here.
“He’s been big now for a long time. He broke Gordie’s record in March, and then he broke his record here today. So good for him. If you’re going to break records, you might as well break Gordie Howe’s.”
Franzen outscored Colorado himself Thursday night with his second hat trick in three games fuelling the rout that completed the sweep of the injury-riddled Avalanche.
Franzen’s nine goals in the series matched Colorado’s total. He is the first player with two hat tricks in one series since Jari Kurri did it for Edmonton against Chicago in 1985.

Franzen needed just 10 playoff games to score 11 goals and break the Red Wings’ record for most goals in one post-season, which was held by three players, including Brett Hull, who needed 23 games to do it in 2002.
“I don’t expect to score that much the rest of the playoffs,” Franzen said. “I only hope I can contribute something offensively.”
The 28-year-old Swede, who scored 27 goals during the season, had a hat trick in Game 2. He is the second Red Wing to post two hat tricks in one playoff series, joining Norm Ullman, who did it against Chicago in 1964.
    - AP

Beards and black cats

DO PLAYOFF SUPERSTITIONS REALLY WORK?

  IT'S the time of year when hockey teams adopt all kinds of superstitions and rituals but none of them knows exactly when to let it go.

It's one thing to wear the same tie...or the same underwear...when you're on a winning streak. Eventually you lose and you know enough to change it..or them. And God Bless those who live with you.

But how about beards? Yes, the winning Stanley Cup team usually is full of bearded players. But so are the 15 other playoff teams who didn't win. Ummmm that's 15-1 odds against the beard working.

And the Montreal Canadiens got into a habit this spring of practicing late. Now, that really screws up the media, particularly the electronic types who need the coach and players for the dinner-hour news. There's something to the physiological that it's better to practice closer to the time you play (which is at night). But the Habs don't practice late most of the year, or on the road. And guess what guys? It ain't really workin': you've lost two of the last four at home and should have lost another!.

The worst case of hanging on just for the sake of it, is in the dressing room of the Ottawa Senators. They've got this huge team logo stitched into a rug in the middle of the floor---and since when is a Centurion a Senator?---and everyone makes  a big deal if you walk on it. So you've got a mob of people in the playoffs tip-toeing around this historically-inaccurate "senator's" head and banging into each other. One day a player is going to get injured because of the congestion caused by keeping the logo unsullied.
Part of the deal is that it gives the young players a way to lord it over the older media herd. But that's a tradition which should be killed next year. It's most noticeable, and in force,  during the huge media crowd of the playoffs and has one single Senator noticed that it's NOT WORKING? The Senators kack almost every year in the playoffs. They should be invited people to walk on the thing and see if that makes a difference. They might be surprised.

- Steve Milton

Any hope for Habs?

They're on their knees but are they done?

MONTREAL - The Montreal Canadiens can take a glimmer of hope from the schedule.
The numbers are against teams trying to rebound from 3-1 deficits in best-of-seven series, but the two days off between Games 4 and 5 should help the Canadiens--and Carey Price if he's game 5 starter---distance themselves from their frustrations and Philly's sense of destiny.
And if they do win Game 5 Saturday, they're right back at it Sunday night in Philly with a little bit of mo on their side. Not that Mo means much in the playoffs unless he's playing goal.

Another factor, which could go either way, is that historically Martin Biron has been a notorious streak goalie. Really streaky, in fact. If he's still hot, well the Habs are done, unless they get a fluke goal here and there and get better netminding in their own end. But if the Canadiens can get Biron into a cold streak, things could turn their way.

- Steve Milton

Keep your mike on the ice

CHERRY CRITICIZES THE MEDIA

What is Don Cherry, the baron of beer halls,  doing criticizing a question by the media?
Cherry, who never asks, but blurts, said a TSN reporter asked a dumb question to San Jose Sharks’ coach Ron Wilson after the most recent Dallas Stars win.
The question was “Do you expect more from your captain (Patrick Marleau)."
Wilson replied “no” and stormed out muttering TSN and Canadian reporters are always asking negative questions.

Wilson had spent much of his time after the morning skate suggesting Marleau had to step up his play.
Perhaps the question could have been phrased differently, but Don Cherry is certainly no Peter Mansbridge and has no business criticizing any professional member of the media.

- Tony Fitzgerald

Celebrating the gory years in Philly

It’s no surprise that yahoos like Steve Downie and Derian Hatcher are so dangerous given the war-like atmosphere the Flyers’ management cultivates.

The gory years of the Broad Street Bullies are celebrated and knuckle-dragging moments like Ron Hextall’s attack on Chris Chelios were honoured Monday in a ‘Crush the Canadiens’ theme.

The game even took on a them-and-us feel as some fans outside the arena yelled ‘spit on the Canadians’ and inside a U-S-A, U-S-A chant broke out.

Charming. And interesting, given that only three Flyers are Americans.

Still, Philly’s foreign mercenaries are at least winning, as opposed to American fortunes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

 

John Kernaghan